IGMS Issue 2 Page 16

  Again he collapsed into peels of hysterical laughter.

  "Too many hands! Too many! Hee-heeeeeee!"

  Then his radio went dead.

  Felder tried to get back in touch with him for five minutes, but no dice.

  The cap's horn had suddenly gone dead, too.

  Felder appeared in the cabin. "Neither of them is where they were," he said. "So here's what we do. We're going out, just as we planned. Set your beamers to mid-level -- I don't want to kill these things, whatever they are, just make 'em move away. I've got a signal on the S.O. It's weak, so we'll go after her first." He turned to Postelwaite. "Jim, you stay with the ship. If the other shuttle gets through from above, report what we've found. If they burn a big enough hole, and we're not back in two hours, tear the hell out of here. Got it?"

  Postelwaite nodded. "Clear as ice."

  Felder turned to the rest of us.

  "Make sure those bio suits" -- he glared at Simmons, who was quickly climbing back into his -- "are tight, and your O2 is ready. Since we only have an hour of air, for now you can crack a vent and use the atmosphere outside." He looked from one to the other of us, then nodded. "Okay, let's do it."

  When he opened the lock there was a smooth wall of green in front of us, luminescent as colored glass.

  As soon as the door slid closed behind us, the wall turned into an army of figures.

  They melted right out of it like liquid. They were human looking enough -- too human, if you know what I mean, since they weren't clothed. The gals looked like, well, gals, and the guys . . . you get the picture.

  They had us surrounded before we knew what hit us. I was raising my beamer when one of them slipped his hand, smooth as can be, around my wrist and removed the weapon, like Mama removing a toy from a bad tot.

  The smooth wall was still there, and it was moving back as we approached it. Then, abruptly, it receded a long way, making a perfect bright green hallway, which we were led through.

  I turned my head and saw that there was now a solid wall behind us, keeping pace about ten feet back. The shuttle was nowhere to be seen.

  When I looked forward again I stopped to study the face of my green escort. It looked vaguely familiar. One of the female figures accompanied Felder, and I studied her carefully --

  "Hey, Mr. Felder," I murmured through my suit radio, as casually as I could, "you happen to notice --"

  "I noticed," he answered. He sounded embarrassed.

  Let me tell you: it wasn't every day you were chaperoned by a full sized naked green copy of your commanding officer.

  Or of Koprowski.

  "They forgot his toothbrush," I muttered.

  "Excuse me?" Bill Felder asked, and I saw that he was staring straight ahead, trying not to look at any of the Caps or Koprowskis.

  "Forget it," I answered.

  As abruptly as they appeared, the bright green figures vanished. I watched one of them melt back into the wall to my left, another one pull up into the ceiling.

  We were now in a box, a cube of green about eight feet to a side. I touched the walls. They were firm as concrete.

  "Now what?" Simmons said.

  "For now, we wait," Felder replied.

  "That's fine with me," Simmons answered. "I've got plenty of images I want to leak out of my head."

  I noted he had been surrounded by two Koprowskis.

  "Oh, my images ain't so bad," Quint cracked; he had been accompanied by two copies of the Cap.

  "That's enough," Felder ordered.

  So we waited -- until naked copies of ourselves suddenly appeared, and led us on another trek, this one down a green set of stairs that materialized before us.

  "Now I'm really gonna have nightmares!" Simmons groaned; this time he was accompanied by two pea-green naked versions of himself.

  Quint laughed. "I don't blame you."

  "Hey --"

  "I said that's enough --" Felder snapped.

  At the bottom of the stairs we came face to face with our shuttle -- only made completely of green vegetable matter.

  "This can't be real --" Quint began, and Felder answered immediately.

  "It isn't. It's a copy, just like the figures. We're forty feet below the real shuttle. I'm still reading its signal above us."

  The green door on the green shuttle slid open, and we were escorted inside.

  "Well you have to admit this copy is amazing," I remarked. There was exactitude down to the smallest detail, including Simmons' crossword puzzle tab where he'd left it on his seat.

  And Science Specialist Jim Postelwaite, who we'd left behind.

  He was all green, of course, and naked, but he sure as hell looked like Postelwaite.

  Felder said, "Jim?"

  The green Postelwaite looked at Felder and said, "Yes, Bill?"

  "Hey, you're not the real --" I said.

  Green Postelwaite looked at me and began to speak, but at that instant he melted away, along with the entire green shuttle we were in. We found ourselves standing on a flat green expanse -- and there in the distance marching toward us, flanked by one naked green Jameson and two naked green Koprowskis, were the real, fully clothed, captain and tech. They looked embarrassed but determined as hell. One of the naked green Koprowskis bore a closed green pod about three feet in length.

  When the cap had reached us she greeted Felder and briefly acknowledged the rest of us. "I suggest we all keep our sight at eye level," she said, and she meant it. "Mr. Simmons, please give our friend here --" she indicated the green naked copy of herself "-- your bio suit. You don't need it to survive down here."

  Simmons did as instructed, and there was an awkward silence while the naked green copy of the captain was helped into the bio suit. Once that was done the captain seemed to relax.

  I couldn't keep my mouth shut: "Hey Cap," I said, "want us to give the naked Koprowskis our suits?"

  "That won't be necessary," she answered. "They won't be staying."

  With that, the two nude Koprowskis melted into the floor like water being poured into a drain, leaving the pod behind.

  "Gentlemen," the S.O. said, "I'd like you to meet Rena. She'll be coming with us as a representative of her . . . people."

  "Not 'people,' exactly, S.O.," the green figure in the bio suit corrected. I noticed that she now looked like Simmons.

  As she looked at each of us in turn, she became our doppelganger.

  "I can see this is going to be a problem," the cap said.

  Rena replied, "Would you rather I assume one set of features?"

  "That would be a good idea, if you don't mind."

  "It's easily accomplished." She instantly reverted to an exact duplicate of the captain.

  Captain Jameson began, "I don't think . . ."

  "Hey S.O.," Koprowski cut in; it was the first time he'd spoken since arriving with two naked green duplicates of himself. He'd spent most of his time glowering at Quint, who had been barely hiding his laughter at Koprowski's discomfiture. "Why don't you let Rena be . . ." With his head, he indicated the pod.

  Rena instantly approached the pod. She opened it along its seam, reached in briefly, then re-closed it.

  When she stood back up she had assumed the features of Rasha Pikal.

  I was staring at the pod as Jameson explained, "I assume the rest of Rasha's remains were found on the surface. All Rena needs is a sample of his genetic material to duplicate him."

  "The accident is greatly regretted," the green Pikal said. "I shall stay in this shape, at least for the time being, if you wish. Perhaps it will serve as an homage to the slain entity."

  "Okay if we call him Reno?" Bill Felder chimed in.

  There were no objections. Jameson said, "Reno it is. And, as I said, Reno will be coming with us. This area we are in, which is a kind of oasis, is both one life form and many life forms. Each one of those green patches we saw from orbit is such a gestalt. Basically, they are the only living things in their areas. Even the trees and other plants we saw on the s
urface are extensions of this one creature. In fact, though they thrive on oxygen, they became plant life in order to produce their own oxygen. They nurture themselves. And though there is only one creature, it can live as separate parts. While Reno will be coming with us, he will remain, at the same time, this entire creature."

  Reno said, "It will be our one chance to see the stars, and visit other worlds. We would be foolish to pass it up. And we will assist you as needed."

  "Not a bad deal," Bill Felder said. "It's too bad poor Pikal didn't get to see this. He would have been thrilled."

  "He is thrilled, I assure you," Reno said. "As long as I retain his shape and mass, I feel exactly what he would have felt. His brain patterns and memories have become my own. My reactions will be what his reactions would be. He is positively ecstatic, believe me."

  "Would Pikal's family object . . .?" I began.

  "We'll sort it out later," the cap said. "Right now I want to get back to the Russell."

  Without any movement from Reno, we found ourselves on the surface of the planet, stepping out of what I later described as "elevator" pods. Another huge pod opened nearby, revealing the shuttle.

  Pushing the sticky substance of the pod away from me, I said, "I'd like to get back to the ship too -- and take a shower."

  As we stepped into the shuttle, greeted by a baffled, and decidedly ungreen, Postelwaite, the captain said to Reno, "Would you like to take a last look at what you're leaving?"

  Reno answered, with what I thought was a trace of a smile, "But captain, I won't be leaving."

  That was another one we had to sort out later.

  And sort it out we did. We stowed the shuttle, and Jen Jameson plotted a slow boat course for our giant gray golf ball to hit a new wormhole which, when we went through it, would put us in the vicinity of another promising system. It was, I was told, three weeks away. Before we left Epsilon Eridani Two we shot the large scheduled probe out ahead of us, containing my full report, brilliantly written if I do say so myself, as well as the remains of Pikal. Don't ask me how, but with the vagaries of wormholes, the reply drone will be there waiting for us when we reach our next jump point, with the latest news of home, as well as word from Pikal's family.

  Later: as advertised, that reply drone was waiting for us, and it was captured as we prepared to enter the new wormhole and set off on Mission B. The remains of my P. J. Award, glued together, have been stowed, along with anything else that might not like that bump.

  We got word from Pikal's family: they would be honored to have our new addition exist in the likeness of Pikal. Which is fine with me, because Reno, like Pikal, is a heck of a good chess player. He's beaten me eight times so far, and the last game we played I made the same dumb Queen to Rook 5 move I made in the last game I played with Pikal.

  We're about to go through; I can hear Bella Post's bellows of a voice booming through the hallways from her cubicle where she's strapped down like the rest of us. She and the other Techies are singing:

  "We're ready to meet with anyone who

  Wants to join our little zoo!"

  Adrift

  by Scott D. Danielson

  Artwork by Sam Ellis

  * * *

  Dr. Anne Gable waited for the call she knew was coming. A psyship was drifting in space, powerless, and she'd have to go, she just knew it. The pilot was unresponsive, and that put it squarely in her territory whether she liked it or not.

  The visiphone beeped, and she pressed the button before it beeped again. Rob Spencer, the head systems engineer of the psyship program, appeared.

  "We need you to come with us," he said.

  Anne sat back in her chair. "How far out are we talking about?"

  "The ship is drifting our way. We'll meet it about six days away, so you'll be back in about two weeks."

  Space. She trained for it before ever interviewing psypilot candidates. She'd been in Earth orbit, but never deeper. "Is the pilot alive?"

  "We don't know," said Rob. "If he isn't, then you won't have much to worry about."

  "You can't take Dee?" she said. Dee was her ex-husband, the first of the psypilots. "Isn't he on Earth right now?"

  "Yeah, he is. He'll be piloting, but we are still requesting that you come with us. Dee's no psychologist."

  Oh, this is getting better and better. "The corporation guys know we used to be married. That's got to be some kind of violation of --"

  "I just spent the last hour convincing the Board that I need you both. Dee is the only Earthside psypilot, not to mention the most experienced, and you are the one who wrote the book on potential psypilot problems. We need you both because we have no clue what we're looking at here. Between Dee, you, and myself, I'm confident we'll know everything we need to by the time we get back."

  "But I haven't seen Dee since --"

  "Anne, please. I really need you there. And I'll be with you the whole time. It's not like you guys will be alone."

  "Yeah," she said.

  "Neither one of you are the arguing type, anyway. You surprised the hell out of all of us when you said you were splitting."

  All true. The marriage had ended not with a roar, but a whimper. Dee is comfortable in his psyship. That's just the way it is. In his psyship, Dee is alive. In his skin, he is ... not.

  "Two weeks?" Anne asked.

  "Yeah, two weeks," said Rob.

  "What's the exact situation?" she said.

  "There's no response at all from it. We're not even receiving on-board telemetry data. This leads us to believe that it's either a catastrophic systems failure, or the pilot shut the whole thing down. We've never had a systems failure like this, so I'm guessing that something's gone wrong with the pilot."

  "Who's the pilot?" she asked.

  "Thomas Schaeffer."

  Thomas was a good friend. All of the psypilots were. She interviewed and approved them all.

  "Thomas is a rock, Rob. You certainly don't think he lost it out there."

  "I don't know what to think yet. Maybe he can't jack out. Maybe he's dead. I just don't know."

  "When are we going?"

  "Tomorrow morning. I'll send a car."

  "Okay," she said. She turned off the visiphone and spun her chair to look out the office window.

  Dee watched as his ex-wife and Rob climbed aboard. He had been jacked in for over an hour and was comfortable. When carrying passengers, he always liked to get settled in early. Besides, this way he'd avoid the inevitable awkward in-the-flesh meeting with Anne.

  Dee's body was present on the ship, in the back near the engines. It was comfortably housed in a small, cushioned compartment. His brain was connected to the ship through a thin umbilical attached to the physical implant on top of his skull, near his motor cortex. When jacked in, the ship's sensors became the pilot's senses, its many cameras his eyes, all its moving parts his limbs. When jacked in, Dee became the ship.

  And there was Anne. He could see her from a couple of different angles, and admired her beauty. He hadn't satisfied her, and he knew that. The way around that wasn't to try harder, because he simply had no more to give. The way around it was to let her go. So that's what he did.

  He willed his face to appear on a screen in front of Anne. "Good morning, Doctor," he said, thinking immediately that he should have called her Anne.

  "Good morning, Dee," she said. Stiff, but not unpleasant. "How are things?"

  "Is there a correct answer to that when talking to a psychologist?" asked Dee. "We'll be on our way in no time."

  "Good," she said.

  "Dee, how are ya?" said Rob.

  "All systems go, Chief!" said Dee. "We should leave orbit in ten minutes."

  "Excellent," said Rob.

  Dee returned attention to himself, the ship. In under a second, he checked the hydrogen pressure (good), the engine temperature (climbing), the life support system (cabin pressure a touch low, nudge it up). Within that same second, he noticed the last of the docking station crew close a panel i
n the engine room, and he verified that some entertainment files he wanted had finished downloading. He planned to use them to keep himself occupied during the flight. He could only apologize to Anne so many times.

  Anne stood there, feeling like an extra limb. She watched Rob make certain that all of his tools had been delivered. Her own tools were in her breast pocket in the form of a small reader that contained her entire library.

  Ten years before, when the psyship program first started, she had been told that she might be called on for missions like this. No one knew at the time how a pilot would react to long-term connection to a system that completely replaced the body. Her first assignment was to head a team of psychologists that predicted possible problems that a person might experience under those conditions. Everything from mild addiction to major personality disorder had been applied, written about, and published. Then they all sat back to watch what happened.

  Dee had been the first psypilot. He went through numerous tests before being connected to a psyship, performing everything from controlling robots to flying remotes through his implant. He'd been excellent not only at performing his duties, but also at reporting how it felt to him to do so. Anne had fallen in love with him, and they married before Dee's first mission. Before Anne truly understood what it meant to be a psyship pilot, for despite all her research and conjecture, she didn't foresee that a pilot would feel better in a metal skin than he did in his own.

  Rob floated up the corridor. "Almost ready," he said.

  "Where will I be sitting?" Anne asked.

  "Up front," Rob said. "Take either seat."

  She pulled herself along the corridor, gaining confidence in zero g. Her worries about meeting Dee had, until now, eclipsed her nervousness about the actual flight. She took a deep breath and entered the front compartment.

  In a normal ship, the crew sat in the front with a whole host of switches and screens to operate. The point of the psyship program was to run the entire ship with one person, so the front compartment here was a comfortable, carpeted room with two chairs outfitted with restraining straps. Through the window, Anne could see the Earth and part of the docking station. Below that was a single screen that allowed the psypilot to interact with the passengers. No flight controls in sight. Dee would be doing the flying.